1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a wireless communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, color image forming apparatuses that perform color processing on images have been widespread. In such a color image forming apparatus, a single-color toner image is formed from each of colors, such as cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, and then these single-color toner images are sequentially transferred onto a recording medium, thereby forming a full-color image on the recording member. The toner for use in image formation is supplied from removable toner bottles. Thus, in order to prevent each toner bottle from being placed at a wrong position, a technology has been generally known in which an RFID (radio frequency identification) tag, which is a non-contact communication storage medium, is placed at a fixing unit of the toner bottle, and an RFID reader on an apparatus body side receives information from the tag to check the set position, thereby preventing the toner bottle from being wrongly set. In this technology, since the RFID reader has to be placed at an apparatus body side for each RFID tag placed at each toner bottle, the number of RFID readers to be placed is disadvantageously large.
To solve the problems, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-271042 discloses an image forming apparatus in which an RFID reader is provided between RFID tags placed at fixing units of two toner bottles. In such an image forming apparatus, all what is required is to place one RFID reader for two toner bottles, thereby reducing the number of RFID readers to be placed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-234499 discloses an image forming apparatus in which an RFID tag is placed on a side surface of a rotating member of a process cartridge.
However, in the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-271042, each RFID tag has to be placed on the side surface of the fixing unit of the toner bottle including a toner supplying unit. This restricts the position where the RFID tag is to be placed, and also restricts the set position of the RFID reader to be placed so as to correspond to the RFID tags.
Moreover, the RFID tags have to be placed at the fixing units of the toner bottles so as to face the RFID reader placed between the toner bottles. Therefore, the toner bottles placed on right and left sides of the RFID reader have different structures on right and left sides, and therefore there is a problem in which the toner bottles cannot be used in common among respective colors. Furthermore, when the toner bottles are recycled, since each toner bottle has a different shape for each color, there is a problem in which the toner bottle used for each color cannot be recycled for use as a common toner bottle.
Also, in the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-234499, the RFID tag is attached onto the side surface of the member in a cylindrical shape, such as a photosensitive member. Therefore, in order to make RFID tags face the RFID reader, an RFID reader has to be placed for each RFID tag. Thus, there is a problem in which, in the first place, the number of RFID readers to be placed cannot be reduced.